Kristin Hall: Highway to Hell, in a bus

It's a dark place. We learn about it at Sunday school, through Jehovah's Witnesses or the ever-rational medium of television.
It's known in some form or another by almost every religion and yet no one wants to be there. But contrary to popular belief, Hell is not a place reserved for the evil and the departed. It is not underground and it does not feature little red men with pointy tails and uncomfortable-looking objects.
Hell is not truly part of the universally enforced image of doom because in reality, it is all around us. It has four wheels. It is called a bus.
For all the greenie glory buses receive - the presumed reduction on carbon emissions, freeing up of roadways, sense of community they enforce on those unlucky enough to use them - the bulk of my most miserable hours have been spent on a bus. I have been known to travel by bike in the midst of a thunderstorm to avoid having to catch the bus. I avoid them like a badly driven, Government-funded plague.
In my 20 years of existence, only one thing has come close to rivalling my pure hatred of the bus system. In fact, the Rugby World Cup is almost superior in annoyingness in that it hasn't even happened yet.
Despite the games being weeks away, over four million innocent New Zealanders are virtually molested by the thing each time they step outside. Billboards line the streets, buses, buildings. Dan Carter appears on your TV screen pretending to be an air conditioner. Even the news has begun to regurgitate any and every angle that could conceivably be spat out of the event - venues, teams involved and now, in a deliciously newsworthy burst of journalistic dedication, jerseys.
While the airwaves initially overflowed with hateful tirades against the seam-bursting tightness of the new jersey-come-catsuit, the bold white collar and the inappropriately jazzy shoes that accompanied them, the focus then switched to the cost of buying such a delightfully breath-restricting garment for one's personal use.
Yes, masquerading as your favourite All Black comes at the pretty price of $220. At least the hyperventilation is free.
Publicity of all things RWC ramped up even more on Saturday with the Bledisloe Cup. Eager media consumers sat with their eyes and ears watering in anticipation. Would the stadium cope? Would the buses be fast? Would organisers give a vague but assuring comment about stadium capacity? Newsmakers around the nation went to bed satisfied with their daily pumping of useless rugby news and I had a notch less faith in humanity.
Imagine my rapture when I learned that a friend's birthday party was to be held right next to Eden Park during the Bledisloe Cup match. Better still, I would have to bus there.
In a hybrid move of curiosity and spontaneous mental rupture I attended the party. I waited bus after bus and was eventually told by a driver he was indeed heading towards "the miserable sodding game". It was not an encouraging prequel. I paid my fare, sat, and could almost feel flames licking at my feet.
I am ashamed of what happened next. It is shocking, wanton and completely against my character.
I quite liked it. The feared bus to the Bledisloe was no less phlegmy, damp or potentially life-threatening than my traditional journeys. It featured largely the same people, the same bacterial growth and the exact same extent of driver enthusiasm with the brake. The difference? People talked.
After some inward reflection, I realised the things I thought I hated about the bus system were only decorative annoyances surrounding the crucial point that no one spoke to anyone. Whether plugged into a technological thingy, reading or simply uninterested in human interaction, the thing that has always bothered me about public transport is seeing a group of strangers so physically close and so distant.
Saturday night was different. Every stop brought a new influx of noise. Some were bleary eyed and stumbling, some were loud, some were Australians - but they talked. And so did everyone else. For the entire 11-minute journey, 60 random strangers cheered, laughed, argued over teams and welcomed every passenger with a congratulatory roar and a mandatory punt at what the score would be. Not once did anyone mention jersey prices, expected revenue or anticipated crowd capacity. I arrived not wanting to get off.
I have perhaps been too harsh in judging the two great banes of my life. Personal vendettas aside, the combination of rugby and the bus system cancelled out my hatred of both. The Bledisloe bus experience created a means of connecting people in a way that never would have happened before - and it was great.
Maybe hell is what you make of it.